Palm Beach County’s new ethics reforms extend to all 38 municipalities on Wednesday and the county is trying to extend the reach to more branches of local government.

County Commission Chairwoman Karen Marcus last week sent a letter to the School Board to try to get the board to voluntarily come under the oversight of the county’s ethics code, Ethics Commission and Inspector General.

Other independently-elected county officials have also been asked to come under the jurisdiction of the new government oversight entities. Those officials include the sheriff, tax collector, supervisor of elections, property appraiser and county clerk & comptroller.

A string of corruption scandals prompted the County Commission in 2009 to impose the new ethics measures on itself and the county departments the commission controls. The reform measures took effect for county government last year and in November more than 70 percent of voters called for expanding those measures to include all 38 cities, towns and villages.

After months of delays due to concerns from some city leaders about the cost and scope of the new oversight, the reform measures for the municipalities take effect Wednesday.

The School Board and other branches of local government have had more than a year to voluntarily accept the ethics measures, but so far prefer to stay outside of their reach.

Community groups that pushed the county to adopt the reform measures say they plan to keep pushing and the county commission plans to keep asking.

“The more that come under the umbrella, the better off we are,” said Bob Newmark of the Palm Beach County Voters Coalition, one of the groups that pushed for the ethics measures.

It would be better to have these measures in place statewide, said Jamie Titcomb, executive director of the Palm Beach County League of Cities.

“That’s part of the frustration … different standards,” said Titcomb, who steps down later this month.